Bahriye Üçok

Bahriye Üçok sculpture

Bahriye Üçok (1919 – October 6, 1990) was a female Turkish academic of theology, left-wing politician, writer, columnist, and women's rights activist whose assassination in 1990 remains unresolved.

Biography

Born in Trabzon, Bahriye Üçok finished her primary education in Ordu and then graduated from Kandilli High School for Girls in Istanbul. She was educated in Medieval Islamic and Turkish History at the Faculty of Philology, History and Geography of Ankara University. At the same time, she attended the State Conservatory and completed the Opera section.

After eleven years, she worked as a high school teacher in Samsun and Ankara, she entered 1953 Ankara University as an assistant in the Faculty of Theology,. She obtained her PhD in 1957, and became 1965 an associate professor with her thesis on "Female rulers in Islamic countries" and finally professor, being the ever first female university teacher in this faculty. Being fluent in Arabic and Persian, she interpreted the Qur'an in a modern, realistic and tolerant way.

In 1971, she was elected contingency senator, and so her political career started. Bahriye Üçok joined in 1977 the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP). After the military coup in 1980, she co-founded the People's Party (Halkçı Parti) and was elected 1983 deputy of Ordu into the parliament. In 1985, after a fusion, (with SODEP) her party was renamed as Social Democratic People's Party (SHP).

She also wrote her opinions in her column in the newspaper Cumhuriyet. After a TV forum, at which she declared that covered dressing in Islam (Hijab) is not obligatory, Bahriye Üçok received increasingly threats from the militant organization "Islamic Movement" (Turkish: İslami Hareket). Not a long time later, on October 6, 1990, she was killed by a mail bomb as she was trying to open a book package in front of her house door. The assassination remained unsolved. She was laid to rest at the Karşıyaka Cemetery in Ankara.[1]

Gülay Calap, known as the "parcel-girl" who had accepted the packet for delivery, disappeared for a long period after the assassination. On January 16, 1994 she was arrested in İzmir as the İzmir responsible of the Revolutionary People's Party, an organization that is aligned with the PKK. The court sentenced her to prison for 22 years and 6 months, where she stayed for 12 years. Calap joined the DTP in 2007 and became its vice president in November 2007.[2]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Bahriye Üçok anılıyor". Cumhuriyet (in Turkish). 2013-10-06. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  2. ↑ Hürriyet newspaper
  3. ↑ Atatürk'ün İzinde Bir Arpa Boyu, Yeni Sayfa (Turkish)

External links

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